Tag Archives: Perverse Incentives

Don’t Be Fooled, ObamaCare Will Drive Up Unemployment and Healthcare Costs

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“To the extent that prices are prevented from rising, it will create enhanced rationing by waiting. And almost anything patients and doctors to do circumvent the cost of waiting will also add to the money cost of care. For example, an increasing number of primary care doctors are becoming concierge doctors. For a fee of about $2,000 a year, patients get same day or next day appointments, more time with the physician and someone who acts as their agent in dealing with other parts of a complex heath care system. Yet physicians who become concierge doctors typically replace a practice that sees about 2,500 patients with one that sees only about 500.”

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=4696

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2009 Promise of Cheaper Health Care Has Morphed Into 2013 Price Hikes

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“Remember when President Obama promised back in 2009 that his health care reform plan would cut insurance premiums for the average family by $2,500? Four years later, those promised cuts have morphed into admissions of price hikes. According to a new study from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, 70 percent of chief financial officers cite health costs as their top concern, up from 51 percent last year, mainly because of what they expect Obamacare to do to costs. Many smaller companies are contemplating dropping family coverage — and will instead offer benefits to workers only, thanks to the higher costs on the way because of Obamacare.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2013/08/19/obamas-2009-promise-of-cheaper-healthcare-has-morphed-into-2013-price-hikes/

 

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Disturbing report finds U.S. hospitals profit more when surgery goes wrong

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“US hospitals face a disincentive to improve care because they make drastically more money when surgery goes wrong than when a patient is discharged with no complications, a study published Tuesday found. An estimated $400 billion is spent on surgery in the United States every year. Privately insured patients with complications provide hospitals with a 330 percent higher profit margin than those whose surgeries went smoothly. Patients whose bills are paid by Medicare — a government insurance plan for the elderly and disabled — produced a 190 percent higher profit margin when complications arose following surgery.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/16/disturbing-report-finds-u-s-hospitals-profit-more-when-surgery-goes-wrong/

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Wildlife trafficker kills 5 crocodiles, 90 rare birds as police descend on his compound

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“Five dead crocodiles, 14 critically endangered turtles and a cache of other rare species have been found in the home of a suspected wildlife trader in one of the Philippines’ biggest slums, the government said Friday.  The juvenile saltwater crocodiles, as well as 90 birds, were killed by the trader or his aides shortly before police and environment officials raided the place Wednesday, Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said. He denounced the unnamed suspects’ ‘cruelty’. ‘What’s particularly alarming about this poaching incident is that there were reports that most of these endangered animals were intentionally killed to avoid detection by authorities,’ Paje said in a statement.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/05/endanger-species-trafficker-kills-5-crocodiles-90-rare-birds-as-police-descend-on-his-compound/

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Why Tax Migration and Federalism Mean Doom for Left-Wing States

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“There have been studies looking at how specific states are driving high-income taxpayers to emigrate. And that means big Laffer-Curve effects.  Which is good news because even politicians are probably capable of learning – sooner or later – that high tax rates won’t raise much revenue if the geese that lay the golden eggs decide to fly away. And since a picture tells a thousand words, here’s the map of taxable income migration put together by the Tax Foundation using IRS data.   Federalism is a very valuable way of protecting people from statism. We see it when people move from New York. We see it when they escape from California.”

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/why-tax-migration-and-federalism-mean-doom-for-left-wing-states-such-as-new-york-california-and-illinois/

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The Grand Experiment Part 2: Unlimited State Creation of Credit and Cash

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“Creating money and credit simply creates more claims on existing real-world resources–it doesn’t create new wealth or resources. When those claims vastly exceed the underlying wealth/resources, the system of credit and currency claims will implode.  Borrowing and printing $10 trillion hasn’t fixed anything; it has only raised the reservoir of risk to the top of the dam. Cracks are opening as the pressure builds, and we should not be surprised when risk and consequence reconnect and the dam gives way.”

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-grand-experiment-part-2-unlimited.html

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Credit crisis begins to cripple Chinese cities

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“Worried lenders in the informal sector raised interest rates for small and medium-size businesses, setting off a much broader wave of defaults in recent weeks, as owners found themselves unable to repay billions of dollars in bad debts, many of them handwritten and hard to enforce in court. State-owned banks have long been allowed to lend only at low, regulated rates barely above the inflation rate, with the total value of loans controlled by quarterly quotas. These loans go overwhelmingly to large state-owned businesses, government officials and politically connected individuals, who then relend the money at much higher interest rates.”

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-08-17/news/41420953_1_coal-mining-cities-wenzhou

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The Source of Systemic Crisis: Risk and Moral Hazard

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“No government agency ever projects deep, long-lasting recessions, because such a period of stagnation would upend all the rosy projections that the status quo is eternally sustainable and stable. Where does all this lead us? To this: Programs that backstop banks and social insurance systems like Medicare are not like fire or life insurance because they are effectively open-ended in terms of costs and in exposure to risk. A system which pools risk without distributing it to the participants and eliminates the causal connection between risk and consequence introduces moral hazard on a grand scale.”

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-source-of-systemic-crisis-risk-and.html

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Welfare Recipients Can Now Earn More Than Teachers

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“A mother with two children in New York, for instance, is able to collect $38,004 per year in welfare handouts. This is greater than the starting salary of a teacher in the state.  In 33 states, welfare recipients make more than they would at an $8 per hour job. In fact, in 12 of those states, welfare recipients make more than they would at a $12 per hour job.  Where is the incentive to work?  Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at CATO, said, ‘There is no evidence that people on welfare are lazy. But they’re also not stupid. If you pay them more not to work than they can earn by working, many will choose not to work.'”

http://benswann.com/welfare-recipients-in-new-york-can-now-earn-more-than-teachers/

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What five beers account for most emergency room visits?

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“The New York Times reported on a study at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, analyzing how many patients in the emergency room had been drinking and what they had been drinking. Not surprising, the top five were Budweiser, Steel Reserve, Colt 45, Bud Ice and Bud Light.”

http://blogs.gazette.com/pikespub/2013/08/20/what-five-beers-account-for-most-emergency-room-visits/

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